THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS

Soon after David Lean crafted the screen’s most piercing extramarital melodrama BRIEF ENCOUNTER, he returned to the subject with THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS but from a female perspective, allowing the viewer to hear Mary’s inner thoughts as she navigates the passion she wants and stability she needs. Based on H. G. Wells’s story of former lovers rekindling romance in Switzerland, Mary (Ann Todd, THE SEVENTH VEIL) is married to jealous husband Howard (Claude Rains, CASABLANCA), but finds herself besotted with old flame Steven (Trevor Howard, THE THIRD MAN).